Recently we've seen some questions about whether Eclipse plug-ins can
be released under the GPL. Answered briefly, this is possible if
you can provide an additional permission with the license to allow
combining your plug-in with the necessary EPL-covered libraries. The
rest of this post examines why an additional permission is necessary,
and has specific recommendations for interested developers.

Rémi Denis-Courmont is one of the primary developers of the VLC media
player, which is free software and distributed under the GPL. Earlier
this week, he wrote to Apple to complain that his work was being
distributed through their App Store, under terms that contradict the
GPL's conditions and prohibit users from sharing the program.

Recently word started getting around that the terms for getting apps
on Windows Phone 7, and indie games on the Xbox, have changed. Now,
programs submitted to Microsoft cannot have any code licensed under a
copyleft license. Even if a single file is licensed under a weaker
copyleft license like the LGPL, Microsoft will apparently reject it.